The common interest which at the time united RePlan’s partners, Nasursa, LGA Kozani and the Comunità Montana Castelli Romani e Prenestini was, on the one hand, to establish the implementation of measures taken by the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESPD) on a regional and local level and, on the other, to be able to lay down the requirements for the future creation of a network of observatories capable of controlling and analyzing the sustainable territorial development of European regions.

RePlan subproject was officially closed last 9th November in Grottaferrata (Rome), Partners, technical experts involved in the subproject and also some other guests participated in the final conference, in which main RePlan outputs and conclusions were explained to the audience.

Project managers explained that the objective of RePlan is to help create certain governance tools that are useful for the progress of European territories. In order to obtain good tools, it is necessary they are supported by scientific methods and, furthermore, it is necessary to have a clear and operative institutional involvement and consensus.

Talking in a more practical way, RePlan’s methodology could be applied in different territory scales and could be useful in the process of taking some political decisions about spatial planning policies.

The subproject work has been supported by a technical teamwork, comprised of university experts of University of Navarre, Public University of Navarre, University of Thessaly and the Società Geografica Italiana, which have all been responsible for devising RePlan’s common methodology.

This methodology consists of a multi-factorial analysis, which is useful to offer to local and regional administrations a complete vision of the different grades of development or their territories; a study about six strategic axes for offering an easy-use vision of the territorial reality and its evolution; and the creation of a common template to asses the weight of each axes and the strategic plan.

In order to monitor development and evolution of European regions, RePlan’s proposes to create a network of Territorial Observatories, as instruments that help facilitate the implementation of regional territorial policies. This network would reinforce the concept of territorial governance as an all-inclusive vision of the provision of service to citizens and the responsibility of the administrators to planning as a public function. 

Main conclusions of the subproject are already published in a book titled “Re-assessment of Planning Instruments: new approaches and strategies towards Regional and Local Development”, where the most important phases of the work made within RePlan are compiled in order to disseminate the subproject’s results in a better way.

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